A sudden movement on her hands stifled any laugh she might have uttered. Before she could clench her fists in denial, the Four Great Rings fell off her fingers.
Even as she watched, the strange multihued metal that composed them vanished, twinkling, into nothingness. The wooden inlays— oak, ash, yew, rowan—crumbled to dust. All that was left were the tiny golden leaves. A sudden wind swept through the chamber from nowhere, and the fire jumped and flared. A puff of smoke made her eyes water and when she could see again, the gold had turned into real leaves. She leapt up, feeling unaccustomed twinges in her joints, and attempted to catch them.
To no avail. One of the tall windows in the chamber opened of its own accord.
The leaves blew through the window, to scatter wherever the wind sent them.
Unbelievingly, she watched them go. Then, slowly, she closed the window again and returned to her chair. She looked at her hands, thin and wrinkled and covered with brown spots, and felt her face. Dreading what she would find, she moved to her inner chamber and her dressing table, where she could look into a mirror.
Gone was the artificial, magical beauty and semblance of youth she had given herself, with the help of her books and the Four Rings, and that had sustained her all these years. Though her visage was not as ravaged as it had once been when she had used Power unwisely and it had taken its toll on her appearance, she now undeniably looked her years. A woman in late middle age peered back from the mirror at her.
The last remnants of her pride rebelled. She put the mirror aside firmly. The
Dowager Queen Ysa, First Priestess of Santize, the premier lady of Rendel save for the new queen, would not present herself like this before the Court. She would not become an object of curiosity and, perhaps, of scorn. She would not have whispers behind her back, speculating on her sudden change of appearance.
What can I do, she thought numbly. Where can I go?
Then she knew. The Yewkeep still stood vacant, and it was hers by right. Or, she amended, if the King claimed title to it, then she would request it from him. He was certain to grant it to her, if only to allow her to remove herself from
Court in as much dignity as she could muster.
She returned to her chair and sat long, staring into the fire, trying to learn to accept the passing of her role as the most important lady in all of Rendel.
And outside the castle, the leaves that were all that was left of the Four Great
Rings rode the wind to a destination unknown.
Epilogue
It is in the courtyard of the Fane of the Glowing that the Four Trees can be found. Oak, Ash, Yew, and Rowan, they, even more than the marble columns within, stand as tall symbols of the four ruling Houses of Rendel. Once Oak leaves carried blight; Ash drooped sadly, shedding leaves even during the period of growth; and even Rowan looked ill with some unknown disease, a few green leaves still valiantly struggling to keep the tree alive. Only Yew ever throve. For years no trace of the ills that afflicted the other three touched this one and people looked upon the Trees and wondered.
Now they wondered no more, for the Four Trees all stood straight and healthy, with fresh green buds replacing the blight and new growth extinguishing every other sign of ill health.
From its building there had been three small windows in the Fane, virtually hidden from all but the most inquisitive, that inspired vague feelings of dread.
For these windows changed with time, and no artisan's touch could account for the shifting. One of these windows depicted the hands and web of the Weavers.
With the advent of the thunder-star and the impact when it hit the northern lands hard enough to make the entire earth quiver and certain fire-throated mountains to awaken, this picture that had changed only a little from the oldest man's memory began to shift. Then the dark hands of the Weavers moved more quickly, and the web upon which they worked began to take on a different appearance.
The second window, which showed a Bog-lupper, also began to change during this time. The surface of the pool became disturbed, and a dark and fell creature emerged onto land.
But it was the third window that created the most unease. This mysterious window had ever shown a blank face, white and barely translucent. Its very lack of design made it uninteresting. Then something began stirring in its depths and it showed a creature more deadly, more horrifying even than the one still dripping from the Bog-pool as it emerged from a heavy, glittering snowstorm.
The Dowager Queen of that time, a powerful woman named Ysa, had destroyed this last window, and given orders that the other two be removed and the wall plastered over as if they had never been.
Quietly, unmarked by any, for people seldom ventured up to the balcony where the windows had once been set, they reappeared, only changed from their former design. Where once the white, translucent one had shown such a horrifying image that Ysa had been moved to smash it to splinters, now it revealed a beautiful, mountainous land, with a tall and fair castle looking over all. The window that had displayed a monster from the depths of the Bog now depicted a new city rising from the ruins of the old. The third was, perhaps, the least changed of them all. Now in place of brown old hands toiling, it showed a web with four familiar designs woven into it, complete and at peace.
In the Cave of the Weavers, the Three worked contentedly on the Web Everlasting.
All the former snarls and tangles that had caused such dismay to the Youngest had smoothed themselves as if of their own accord, and for time foreseeable, all was well in the world.
Past them was the section where the horror had dwelt. Today had gone, and tomorrow had come, bringing with it resolution and relief. No longer was the
Youngest eager to rush ahead to learn what lay in store for the ones both great and small whose lives wove in and out of the Web of Time. "The affairs of mortals, frail and fleeting as they are, do not concern us," she murmured.
"It is good that you have learned that lesson," the Eldest said, and then the
Youngest knew she had spoken loudly enough for her Sisters to hear.
"There was death and mourning, and life and rejoicing," the Middle Sister commented. "What more is there to know?"
The Youngest paused in her work and, as was her habit, glanced back along what had been completed in Time's Web.
There, even in the place where once chaos ruled, all was now order, in recorded lives and death, Kingdoms' rise and passing and even their rebirth.
At last she had come to understand the wisdom of never giving in to pity for the ones whose destinies they wove. There was no mercy available for those who were doomed, and never could there be any meddling with the design. To do such would be to create a worse tangle than the one the Three had just spent so much effort in bringing into order.
As always, the living would continue to believe that they were free to make decisions, to act as they believed fit, even as their threads passed through the fingers of the Weavers.
A sudden draft at the entrance to the cave made all look up. In swept four golden leaves. They lodged in the Web Everlasting, and immediately sank into it.
The Youngest and the Middle Sister looked surprised, but the Eldest merely raised one eyebrow, as if she had been expecting them.
"So, you're back," she said.
The End
Andre Norton, A Crown Disowned
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